Chromane compounds represent an important class of chiral natural products and bioactive compounds. An important class of chromane compounds are vitamin E and its esters. Often vitamin E is commercialized in the form of its esters because the latter show an enhanced stability.
On the one hand the typical technical synthesis of vitamin E leads to mixtures of isomers. On the other hand higher bioactivity (biopotency) has been shown to occur in general by tocopherols and tocotrienols having the R-configuration at the chiral centre situated next to the ether atom in the ring of the molecule (indicated by * in the formulas used later on in the present document) (i.e. 2R-configuration), as compared to the corresponding isomers having S-configuration. Particularly active are the isomers of tocopherols having the natural configuration at all chiral centres, for example (R,R,R)-tocopherols, as has been disclosed for example by H. Weiser et al. in J. Nutr. 1996, 126(10), 2539-49. This leads to a strong desire for an efficient process for separating the isomers. Hence, the isomer separation not only of vitamin E, but also of their esters, particularly their acetates, as well as of their precursors is of prime interest.
Separation of all the isomers by chromatographic methods is extremely difficult and costly.
To overcome these inherent problems, it has been tried to offer stereospecific synthesis allowing the preferential formation of the desired isomers only. However, these methods are very expensive, complex and/or exotic as compared to the traditional industrial synthesis leading to isomer mixtures.
Therefore, there exists a large interest in providing stereospecific synthesis routes leading to the desired isomer.
Particular difficult is to achieve specifically the desired chirality at the chiral carbon centre in the 2-position of the chromane ring.
A synthetic pathway for chromanes is via their corresponding chromanones. It is known from Kabbe and Heitzer, Synthesis 1978; (12): 888-889 that α-tocopherol can be synthesized via α-tocotrienol from 4-oxo-α-tocotrienol which is accessible from 2-acetyl-3,5,6-trimethylhydroquinone and farnesylacetone in the presence of pyrrolidine. However, this procedure leads to a racemic mixture in view of the configuration at the 2-position of the chromane respectively chromanone ring.